CASE STUDIES ASPIRE HOUSING

Housing Trust infrastructure supported by Nviron

Background

Aspire Housing was set up to take over ownership of the 9,690 strong housing stock which was transferred from Newcastle-under-Lyme Borough Council in January 2000.

Since then they have invested over £60 Million in improving their properties and continue to perform highly on repairs and other services.

As a non-profit making Registered Social Landlord they are registered with the Housing Corporation, the statutory body responsible for supervising and regulating social landlords. All of their properties are located within the Borough of Newcastle-under-Lyme, which lies west of Stoke-on-Trent and midway between Manchester and Birmingham, covering an area of approximately 81 square miles.

Problem

With the creation of Aspire Housing in 2000 came the need to relocate the organisation from council owned and supported premises to a separate location. This also entailed the requirement to design and install a new IT infrastructure to support the business.

As a long-time partner of the Council’s, Nviron’s expertise was utilised to design and deliver the IT infrastructure for Aspire Housing. But beyond this initial project, the organisation needed to be partner with a company that could provide on-going support of their infrastructure and complement the skills and experience of their busy IT support team.

Solution

With such an in-depth knowledge of Aspire Housing’s systems and staff, Nviron were able to offer the SystemCare managed support solution that is designed specifically for organisations that require a fast and expert response to their IT problems.

Nviron’s team of professional support technicians have the necessary qualifications coupled with real-world experience of applying and supporting the technology they are advising on. This ensures that they are able to provide a fast diagnostic response to get systems up and running in the quickest possible time.

The service provides for:

• Unlimited number of telephone incidents each with a nominal 30 minute limit
• Quarterly site visits to carry out real and preventive maintenance
• Unlimited priority response with 7x24 Crisis Helpline option for on-site calls for system-dead
• Named Account Manager for advocacy
• Dial-in option for remote support and faster problem resolution
• SystemCare monitoring and reporting tool kit

The quality of the service has led to a long term relationship, with Nviron continuing to provide continued and proactive assessment of the IT infrastructure.

John Main from Aspire Housing commented:

“We are delighted with the quality of the support services we have received from Nviron over the years. The expertise of their staff complements our internal skills and enables us to quickly troubleshoot and fix problems when they occur.

In addition the proactive nature of the service ensures that we are continually working to prevent problems before they become critical and adversely impact our users.

The guidance and advice Nviron have provided have been an important factor in ensuring that we have a stable and productive IT infrastructure that supports our aims as a business.”